UT football: Longhorns have trust issues

AUSTIN — Immediately after Texas’ disastrous 28-21 loss to Iowa State on Saturday, an infuriated Longhorns coach Mack Brown surprised some people with his blunt assessment of his team and staff.

Two days later, he hadn’t mellowed much.

Brown reiterated Monday that he is having a difficult time trusting his players and assistant coaches this season because he can’t depend on his team to play with passion every week. He said he told his assistants Sunday that his comments about a lack of trust should be taken seriously.

“If you’re coaching a position, and your position isn’t doing a good job every week, then I can’t trust you’re doing a good job coaching,” Brown said he told his coaches. “If one of your guys is playing bad, I can change him. If three of your guys are playing bad, I’ve gotta change you.”

Offensive coordinator Greg Davis is the assistant receiving the bulk of the criticism from outside the program, as his unit’s production has plummeted to 80th nationally in scoring, 71st in total yards and 73rd in rushing.

Davis has been inundated with questions about running back D.J. Monroe, who is averaging 11.7 yards per carry this season but has touched the ball on offense just once in the past two games combined. Davis repeatedly said Monroe is a liability in pass protection, but admitted Monday he still needs to find a way to get Monroe involved.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Davis said. “It was my fault. I’ve got to get him involved in some situations.”

Still, Davis said utilizing Monroe is more complicated than outsiders think, and took a verbal jab at the media for the questions about his running back usage.

“I might not be the smartest guy in this room, but I can match IQs with most of you,” Davis said.

Nothing personal against Greg Davis, but he should be the first person looking for a job next year, this has been well over a decade too long. His style of offense is borish and not very innovative, he has had two outstanding quarterbacks that have been able to make something out of nothing.

His recievers too often are standing still when they catch the ball, other teams are punishing these poor kids. And I think I will puke if I ever see another wide reciever screen, really, that’s all the creativity that you have for coming up with offensive plays.

So if Mack gets rid of Muschamp, does that mean he doesn’t get to be the NEXT HEAD COACH AT TEXAS???!!!???!!!!! After they poured that orange Nehi over his head and anointed him??!!?? Come on Texas–that’s not right!!

Greg Davis had Jamaal Charles and grossly underutilized him to the point Charles left a year early. Many fans feel Davis has the most unimaginative offense in the nation. Were it not for Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley, the Horns would have been labeled failures long before now. High school offense at best. Davis has gotta go!!!

Greg, u might be able to match IQ’s with most guys in that room, but you don’t match up against most defensive coordinators across the country. Maybe that’s what Mac wants, to keep assistants that are dumber than him. Gonna be hard to find too many though.

Good to see Mack lose his political correctness over this. The GD issue is so many years over-due I had given up hope of a change in Mack’s tenure, but as in politics, no disaster should ever go to waste.

The most over-blown complement in football is how strong an arm a quarterback has. The important questions are how accurate is he, does he see the field and can he run. It only took a few weeks to see the passing potential in Major and Colt.. longer for VY but what a runner. Several games into this season, Gilbert is unfortunately looking more like Simms. Accuracy is erratic, and every drive is in jeopardy of banging into an interception from a poorly considered throw. If the Baylor game heads south, think it’s time to see if the second McCoy is another real McCoy. No one should be guaranteed a starting spot, no matter how highly recruited they were.

The defense was horrible too, but think this was the first really bad outing by one of WM’s defenses, so just circle the wagons. Plus, may not be any forms yet for buying out a head coach in waiting.

Amen to the Greg Davis criticism. He needs to go now. In regards to Gilbert, while he may not have played as well as we hoped he would this year keep in mind what his age is and that this is a transition year for the team. We all would like to have seen him step in and be a stud from day one like his rival recruit Matt Barkley but sometimes it takes a year of playing to become dominant. If UT had any kind of consistent running game Gilbert would look much better out there as he wouldn’t have to carry such a heavy load.

If you don’t believe me look at VY and McCoy. Both of them redshirted which Gilbert did not. VY’s redshirt freshmen year was somewhat of a transition year for the team and he was very inconsistent part of which was Davis’ inability to adapt his offense to a different style of QB. His second playing season he was still inconsistent but started to really get going about halfway through. That was a year and a half of PT plus a redshirt year.

McCoy had a dominant team around him his redshirt freshmen year which put a lot of pressure on him to perform but made things much easier for him in terms of making plays. He had experienced playmakers at receiver, a good O-Line and Charles at RB (though underutilized). His numbers looked good that year but rarely was he asked to take over a game. The following year he did not look very good once most of those guys graduated as his numbers fell off. Fortunately, Charles had some big games even though he was still underutilized which took some pressure off of McCoy.

It was not until VY and McCoy’s third playing season that they took off to stardom. My hope is that we will see more improvement as the year progresses and some of the younger guys get more reps. The offense need to establish some sort of identity before the season ends to give the team some confidence heading into next season. The good news is that while all three of the main RB’s and Monroe will be back next year, UT also has one of the top RB recruits coming in and if he is legit I would expect him to be getting a great deal of carries before long.

This team has played piss poor and they are certainly underachieving but if the young guys get more opportunities to get game experience it will pay off next season when the graduating losses will be minimal outside of the CB position. Plus, if losing this ugly causes Mack to finally fire Greg Davis then it will all be worth it. Heck, I’d be willing to sacrifice an 0-12 season if that would happen…

The most consistent problems of the offense over the past decade have been on the offensive line. There really hasn’t been any consistent push from the OL in a long time.

The past few years have had a smart/reliable QB with smart/reliable receivers (Cosby and Shipley) to mask any inherent problems in the offense. This year’s team has neither of those. Kirkendoll and M. Williams may be my least favorite UT receiving starters in the last 20 years.

I’ve been hoping that Greg Davis would get some head coaching offer that he couldn’t turn down for a long time, but I suspect that isn’t going to happen.

I’ve never drunk the Kool-Aid on either Muschamp or strength coach Jeff Madden. I’ve seen better and more consistent defenses in UT’s past. Muschamp can go ahead and take whatever job he wants – he’s not that special. Enthusiasm shouldn’t be mistaken for skill.

I’d be looking for a replacement for Gilbert, but my suspicion is that there isn’t one on campus.

Having said all that, I’d be careful about blowing up the staff. Hasn’t worked out all that well for A&M.

Mike, appreciate your blogs and articles. I think there is also a issue with what the recruiting style has turned into. In the past it seemed like they were recruiting “football players” whereas over the last 2-4 years its transformed to being all about speed and less about getting good all-around players. I also have heard and read comments from Will Muschamp this year talking about how he has a defense that is only built to stop spread offenses….what if anything can be made from those comments? Could it be he is not allowed to recruit who he wants? And how much say does Muschamp have in recruiting, since he has the title of coach in waiting?

Brian — I’ve been in the room for just about every public comment Muschamp has made in the past year, and I’ve never heard him say he has a defense built “only” to stop spread offenses. He has said the nature of college football has forced defenses to put more of an emphasis on those types of schemes. I never got the feeling he feels he’s limited by recruits. In fact, I’d venture to say he has as much influence on recruiting as anyone on the staff. — Mike

Greg Davis has always been held to a separate standard by Mack, so when Mack says “if 3 of your guys are playing bad, I’ve gotta change you,” what he really means is “Greg, you’re doing a great job, even though the QB can’t throw, the receivers can’t catch or block, and the offensive line doesn’t know who to block.”

If the end result of spending a reported $400 million on facilities upgrades is to get punk’d by Iowa State then maybe we aren’t getting a good return on the investment.

Last year, it seemed like a good idea to make Mack the highest paid state employee. Right now, he needs to take a steep pay cut.